Dirty War

ARTICLES ABOUT DIRTY WAR BY DATE - PAGE 2

Argentina's Supreme Court rewarded a decades-long vigil this week by striking down amnesty laws. The ruling means military officials and others who perpetrated abuses during the "Dirty War" can be held accountable. The decision is a victory for a group of women who have stood outside the country's presidential office in a firm but stoic demand for justice. They are the mothers of thousands of people who "disappeared" during the 1976-1983 era of military rule. Hopefully, the ruling will also restore some confidence in judicial systems.

HBO's Dirty War depicts to convincing effect a terrorist bombing at rush hour in central London. Killing scores of people, it sends a billowing cloud of toxic smoke over a city only partially equipped to deal with the chaotic aftermath. Could it happen here? I don't mean another terrorist event -- I mean a movie that seeks to rattle us out of a complacent belief that the terrorism front is exclusively "over there" now (Iraq, Afghanistan, Madrid, Istanbul) and not also on the verge of happening again in our own back yard.

10 a.m. today on Cartoon Network, Pet Alien: Twelve-year-old Tommy leads a fairly normal life until aliens land in the seaside town of DeSpray Bay. Dinko, Gumpers, Flip, Swanky and Scruffy try to help their friend but their best intentions only complicate his life in this new animated series. 9 p.m. Monday on HBO, Dirty War: Three fronts are converging: Rescue workers participate in an emergency services drill in London; terrorists are preparing a radioactive-bomb attack; and Scotland Yard is combing through information to try to uncover the plot.

Antonio Banderas has a propensity for looking tortured -- even in Spy Kids, he never appeared to have as much fun as everyone else. His look, starting with a furrowed brow and proceeding downward to lips pursed so tight it would take pliers to part them, works in his favor in the powerful and disturbing political drama Imagining Argentina. He's a perfect fit for the role of Carlos, a head of a children's theater company in Buenos Aires in the late 1970s who believes, as artists often do in times of crisis, that he can blithely continue his work and ignore the repressive actions of a military dictatorship.

Dredging up a painful and ugly past is worth the anguish if it serves the cause of justice and bolsters faith and confidence in a country's judicial system. That's the crux of the debate in many Latin American countries today as they come to terms with terrible abuses in still very recent history. The cruelty involved torture, murders and the "disappeared" -- people abducted and never heard from again -- during eras when military dictatorships ruled countries or when civil wars raged. In the past decade or so, many Latin American countries transitioned from authoritarian rule to democracies.

I am a 100 percent disabled veteran of World War II. I was in combat as a fighter pilot in the South Pacific for two years. I saw most of the men I flew with get killed. I was lucky. I was shot down by Japanese naval gunfire, but lived. I was in favor of going into Iraq, not for me, but because a lunatic was in charge over there and I was afraid for my children and grandchildren. I still think it was the right thing to do. My irritation and profound annoyance is about our president landing on an aircraft carrier in a pilot's uniform, declaring the war is over and then saying, if there are any other problems, "Bring them on."

The Supreme Court opened the door Wednesday for the prosecution of former government officials involved in the "dirty war" of the 1960s and 1970s, when hundreds of students, activists and peasants were "disappeared," tortured and killed by the army and police. In a historic decision on a long-festering issue, a four-justice committee of the 11-member court ruled unanimously that the statute of limitations for kidnapping had not run out in cases where the victim has yet to be found. "The crime of illegal detention, in the modality of abduction or kidnapping, has no statute of limitations while the disappeared person is in that condition," the court ruled.

He has already tried to prosecute former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as well as dozens of military officers accused of atrocities in Argentina's Dirty War. Now Spain's most renowned judge, Baltasar GarzM-sn, has set his sights on Osama bin Laden. On Wednesday, GarzM-sn charged bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, and nine people identified as members of the terror network, with committing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other acts of terrorism. "Even though international detention orders have been issued by other countries," GarzM-sn said his order was needed "to help ensure they are brought to justice when they are located and arrested."

A judge ordered the release on Monday of most of the 40 former military men being held on charges of murder and other crimes committed during the "Dirty War" of the 1970s and 1980s, days after the Spanish government said it would not seek their extradition. President Nestor Kirchner used Spain's announcement to increase pressure on the Supreme Court to overturn the amnesty laws that prohibit trying the men in Argentina. Monday, a judicial panel moved to bring new charges against the former military men and about 30 others.

As an ironfisted army general in the mid-1970s, Antonio Domingo Bussi allegedly administered concentration camps and oversaw the kidnappings and murders of hundreds of people in the northwestern province of TucumM-an. As a populist politician in the 1990s, Bussi has been governor and national legislator. Last month, he was elected mayor of this 438-year-old provincial capital, known for its orange trees and crushing poverty. Bussi has never been tried for the crimes he is accused of committing during Argentina's "Dirty War."